


Another Step in the Journey

by navaan



Category: Doctor Who (2005), Gallifrey (Big Finish Audio)
Genre: Chance Meetings, Gen, Missing Scene, POV Female Character, Personal Growth, Potentially Divergent Timelines
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-25
Updated: 2018-12-25
Packaged: 2019-09-26 05:39:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,361
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17136011
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/navaan/pseuds/navaan
Summary: Ace finally joins the Time Lord Aademy and down the line takes her place in the Celestial Intervention Agency. Some scenes from the journey that's her life now.





	Another Step in the Journey

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hhertzof](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hhertzof/gifts).



Ace has seen so many planets and civilizations that stepping into the Citadel could just be _another_ alien city to see. But it never was like that. Every time she was allowed to step through, she remembered the path that had led her here.

„It must be strange to you,“ Romana said and she waked at her side.

„I've lived in centuries not my own. I joined a space fleet and ran around the universe with a trade alliance of eight different species for a while because I needed to figure out what I wanted to do next. I know you Time Lords think you are far above the rest of the universe and don't worry – you can call yourselves Lords of Tie for a reason – but politics, the stuffiness, the self-centered gate-keeping doesn't set you apart that much. Seen all that before in various shapes and sizes.“

Romana laughed, far from insulted. “That's why we need you, Ace. You and Leela and the renegades who know more than Time Lord politics and ethics. Sometimes we need the outside perspective.”

“Good to have a rain check,” Ace agreed. She had long suspected that her “Professor” had started his own off-world journey because the confines of Gallifrey had not satisfied his curiosity. 

“Yes,” Romana admitted. “And we may need it more than ever.”

In her Time Lord robes, with the huge collar, she looked like a human who had stepped out of a warped historical play, but her smile was genuine. The Lady Romanadvoratrelundar was one of the few Time Lords who had travelled with the Doctor – much like Ace had and yet she doubted things had been for Romana as they had been for Ace. 

“I always wondered why your people don't travel more. Younger me would have thought you must have all space and time at your fingertips.”

“Like the Doctor, you mean.”

“The Professor is the Professor,” Ace said and allowed a sharp edge to bleed into it. She missed him, but she was her own person. She had learned to survive on her own, relying on her own sharp wit. _And yet here you are, to become one of them like he set you up to do._

“Feels like the first day back at school,” she told Romana who smiled encouragingly.

* * *

“I've never seen you in the Citadel?” he lab partner asked. “What chapter are you from? What house?”

“No chapter, no house. Only one heart beating in this chest.” She grinned brightly. Time Lord youngsters aren't like the kids she went to school with, but they were _young_ in terms of Time Lord lives and timelines. Ace brought practical experience none of them head. “If you ever want to get into some trouble, I'm the one to look for.”

She found out soon that not-yet-Time-Lord youngsters behaved much like you'd expect a young adult to behave in an academy environment. A lab exploded with pink stardust spread across the facilities – and Ace knew she had inspired the plan with one of her stories – and a group of young people made a huge deal about avoiding curfews. For a moment it was fun to remember what it was like to be young.

She learned she wasn't the first non-Gallifreyan to enter the Academy, but most off-worlders were fostered here to learn and become diplomatic bridges later. Ace was on the track to become a Time Lord and she knew that her career would lead her towards the CIA.

“I hear you're doing well?” Romana asked when they met towards the end of Ace's first year.

“It's in the name. I'm acing it.” She laughed at her own joke.

* * *

The first time she was assigned a Tardis was a magical moment. She stepped into the clean looking standard interior of a young and newly modeled Tardis and heard her hum, familiar and welcoming. 

“Hello,” she said, feeling strangely touched by the purring. “We'll travel together for a while, girl. How do you feel about that?”

For the first time and just for the briefest moment she found the Tardis reach out to her, touching her mind, realizing she couldn't or the same connection that would perhaps have been possible with a full Gallifreyan. “We have a mission,” she whispered to the Tardis as if in apology. “But if it gets boring I'll let you steal me any time you want.”

It was only the first Tardis she was to pilot in the service of the Celestial Intervention Agency, but that first trip remained memorable like her first time flying a speed flyer for the human Spacefleet.

* * *

“Timelines are fragile,” Romana said softly and handed a disc to Ace. “Everything you need to know is on there.”

“Thank you, Madam Coordinator. 

“I know I can trust you. Be careful, Ace.”

She took out her Tardis, let it linger in the Vortex for longer than was strictly necessary. She enjoyed the temporary freedom it gave her, but she kept an eye on the readings. Daleks were everywhere and Ace had had too many brushes with them to be careless.

“What do you think? Where are we going first?” Ace asked the Tardis. 

There was a rift in time that needed to be closed and all that counted was that she did so without disrupting history of the nearby planets. 

“Right,” she whispered when her Tardis hummed, unimpressed. “Let's take a look at the planet first.”

She took a stroll across a morning market, enjoyed the hustle and bustle of humanoids around her. Children were running and laughing as if they were preparing for a festival. And all her readings said that the rift was closed only a memory. 

“Looks like you sent me off on a wild goose chase, Madam Coordinator.”

“Not quite,” a woman said to her right. She had short blonde her and inquisitive blue eyes. An echo of Romana was in her gaze, but then she grinned, impish and broad, and her way of speaking had nothing of the former President. “Did your work for you, Ace. Good to see you. Look at you. How far you've come.”

She blinked. Frozen in her place, because she felt caught. “Did Brax set you up to this?”

“Doctor? Are we leaving now?” An older man asked fro somewhere in the crowd.

“Professor?” Her voice nearly caught in her throat as the lines of time she could read on her scanner suddenly settled and made sense. 

The woman waved with on hand and then put a finger against her lips. “Out of sequence. Don't tell on me.”

Ace laughed. This woman was such a far from the Doctor she'd known. 

“On my way, Graham. Yaz! Ryan! Fam! We're off!” she cried and waved her hands and something in it was _right_. 

She winked at Ace. “Take care of yourself, Ace. You're a smart girl. Do what you think's right and don't let them confuse you. You have a Tardis and all the knowledge you'll ever need.”

“But I...”

“You know what's right. Maybe you'll meet Clara or Bill and never run from any Bad Wolves.” The Doctor winked and then was off, leaving Ace to feel as if she'd been manipulated by the old renegade Time Lord again – and yet she wondered if she'd just been told to free herself from the influence of a past regeneration by an older wiser Doctor?

She watched the woman vanish with her companions, a spring in her step, child more than wise-woman at that moment.

Ace returned to the Tardis thinking it over. She had a Tardis. She could use a break from Time Lord politics, but she owed Romana and Leela and all the friends she'd made on Gallifrey, too. “How about I steal you for one trip?” she asked the Tardis. “Just to find out what a Bad Wolf is. Or a Clara?”

The purr of the sentient machine was joyous.

“Let's go then!”

She pushed the lever and they were off to a new adventure.

Just a little detour for this CIA agent before she returned to duty... Just to see where the next step would take them. Romana would understand.


End file.
